Leprosy among the French Settlers of Tracadie. 5 1 



at Sheldrake Island, in the Miramichi River, the hospital was 

 removed to Tracadie, in the county of Gloucester, where it 

 continues to remain. 



" The situation of the Lazaretto is dreary in the extreme, 

 and the view which it commands embraces no object calculated 

 to please, or indeed to arrest, the eye. On the one side is a 

 shallow, turbid sea, which at the time of my visit was un- 

 enlivened by a single sail ; on the other lies a monotonous 

 stretch of bare, cleared land, only relieved by the ugly church 

 and mean wooden houses of a North American village. 



" The outer enclosure of the Lazaretto consists of a grass 

 field, containing some three or four acres of land. Within 

 these limits the lepers are now allowed to roam at will. Until 

 lately, however, they were confined to the much narrower 

 bounds of a small enclosure in the centre of the large one, 

 and containing the buildings of the hospital itself. 



" Into these dismal precincts I entered, accompanied by the 

 Roman Catholic Bishop of Chatham, the Secretary to the Board 

 of Health, the Resident Physician, and the Roman Catholic 

 priest of the village, who acts as Chaplain to the hospital. 



" Within the inner enclosure are several small wooden build- 

 ings, detached from each other, and comprising the kitchen, 

 laundry, etc., of the establishment ; one of these edifices, but 

 newly completed, is furnished with a bath — a great addition 

 to the comfort of the unhappy inmates. The hospital itself is 

 a building containing two large rooms, the one devoted to the 

 male, and the other to the female, patients. In the centre of 

 each room is a stove and table, with a few benches and stools, 

 whilst the beds of the patients are ranged along the walls. 

 These rooms are sufficiently light and well-ventilated, and at 

 the time of my visit were perfectly clean and neat. In the 

 rear of these rooms is a small chapel, so arranged that a 

 window obliquely traversing the wall on each side of the par- 

 tition, which divides the two rooms, enables the patient of 

 either sex to witness the celebration of Mass without meeting. 



